• Using LTO 3 Tapes In an LTO 2 Drive

  July 23, 2008 Hey, Joe

  Do you know if we’ll be able to read tapes created from a new Linear Tape Open Ultrium drive (400 GB native format) on our old Ultrium LTO 2 drives? We want to take tapes from a scientific vessel at sea that may purchase the LTO 3 drive and read the tapes back in the office on our LTO 2 drive. –Anne When comparing LTO 2 and LTO 3 tape drives, the rule is that an LTO drive can usually read tapes that were created at a lower tape drive level, but not tapes that were created at a higher

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• API Fun Time

  July 16, 2008 Hey, Ted

  We have a job that is designed to run periodically to collect XML files from a third party via FTP. Rather than have a program that is constantly active, it was decided that the very first action of the program would be to re-submit itself to a single entry job queue with a scheduled run time derived from a maintainable value held on a file. The benefit of this approach is that if for some reason the program fails there is no need to worry about re-starting the process–unless of course the program failed at the self-submit stage! When an

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• Conditional Inserts with JDBC Prepared Statements

  July 16, 2008 Hey Mike

  I would like to write a conditional INSERT in SQL so I can use a prepared statement through JDBC. However, SQL supports IF only in SPL, the Stored Procedures Language. Is there another way to insert the record if doesn’t exist? –Avdhesh For the reader’s benefit, here is the SQL statement Avdhesh wants to run in JDBC: if not exists (select 1 from cotable where coekey = ?) then insert into cotable (coekey, cocode, coname, coactv) values (?, ?, ?, 1); end if Unfortunately DB2 for i5/OS doesn’t support dynamic scripting. Therefore conditional statements such as IF are not supported

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• Admin Alert: A Client Access Mystery Solved. . . with No-Prizes!!!

  July 16, 2008 Joe Hertvik

  In April, I introduced Rick, an admin with a Client Access problem. His 9406-720 AS/400 would not accept more than 70 5250 client sessions. Try as I might, I was unable to solve Rick’s issue. In desperation, I submitted the problem to my legions of readers (at least 50), offering a variation on a Marvel Comics’ No-Prize to anyone who could solve it. Here’s what happened. Part One: The Deluge of Answers Never in the history of Admin Alert (serving the Power i, iSeries, and AS/400 community since 2002) had I received so large a response to a single

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• PHP and the Zend Framework

  July 9, 2008 Erwin Earley

  In a previous series of articles in IT Jungle, I introduced you to the enablement of the PHP language, via Zend Core, on i5/OS and the capabilities that PHP provides for the development and deployment of Web applications integrated with i5/OS objects and DB2 data. (See Related Stories below.) The customer interest in PHP has been high and I receive numerous questions at customer events on its usage of PHP on IBM i. Many people also ask about Zend Framework. What is Zend Framework? Can I use it on i5/OS? How can I integrate the advanced functionality that Zend Framework

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• A Handy SQL Timestamp Function

  July 9, 2008 Hey, Ted

  I have found a great tool for working with timestamp data. I have used it for performance tracking and analyzing data intervals. It’s SQL’s Timestampdiff function, and I think you should tell readers of Four Hundred Guru about it. Timestampdiff returns the difference between two timestamps in the interval of your choice. The first parameter for the timestampdiff function is the interval to use. Valid values for this parameter are:

  In recent articles, I discussed some techniques for preventing your subsystems from restarting after a full system backup; turning off your iSeries, System i, and Power i attention lights; and preparing to add disk drives to your system. After publishing these tips, several readers wrote in with corrections, additions, and stories that flesh out the techniques even further. This week, let’s look at what you had to say and see what additional information we can pick up from them. More On Stopping Your System i From Starting Up After printing a tip on stopping your controlling subsystem from restarting after

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• Keeping Time with NTP

  June 25, 2008 Tom Van Looy

  The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a protocol for synchronizing the clocks of computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks. NTP uses UDP port 123 as its transport layer. It is designed particularly to resist the effects of variable latency (jitter buffer). The Network Time Protocol (NTP) version 3 is described in RFC1305 and the Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) version 4 is described in RFC2030. NTP is not related to the much simpler daytime RFC867 and time RFC868 protocols. NTP client/server on i5/OS You can validate the current time with the command DSPSYSVAL QDATETIME. The NTP server on

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• What Happened to My Key?

  June 25, 2008 Hey, Ted

  We use SQL’s CREATE TABLE command to make each user his own copy of a file. Although the original file is keyed, the copy is not. Do you have any ideas on how to keep the key? –Mary Jo Mary Jo provided the following commands by way of example: create table Temp as (select * from PATTERN) with no data rename table Temp to FileForJoeSmith So, what’s Mary Jo to do? The first thought I had was to create the index by hand, like this: create unique index FileForJoeSmithIndex1 on FileForJoeSmith (SomeField) But that was not a solution to the

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• Stopping Your System i from Starting Up

  June 25, 2008 Hey, Joe

  I’m performing an i5/OS upgrade this weekend, but I first want to save my system by performing an Option 21 save (Entire system) off the GO SAVE menu. To save time, I don’t want to automatically restart the system after the backup completes. How do I stop my system from automatically restarting? –Bruce The bad news is that there isn’t a parameter that stops an Option 21 save from restarting an i5/OS system after your save completes. The good news is that you don’t need one. It’s simple to keep your system in a restricted state after a backup. All

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